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“Applesauce, Hungry girl, Beating off”

In every bookstore I enter—
I yearn to be that young guy,
charming as black fuzzy dice—
beneath my charcoal wool coat.
Prowling the poetry aisles,
peeking in and out between
negative spaces books make;
Waiting for my woman
filling tall brown boots;
Burning beneath a red felt hat.
She will reach out
for Pablo Neruda—
and slip out from the shelf
her carnal apple;
Which I will offer in my most
modest manner—
to carve out for her
with my sharp tongue,
translating every term
she has not yet learned
in the language of love.

My only problem is—
I haven’t figured out, yet—
how to get past introductions
without stuttering my own name
and shrinking back into the corner;
Somewhere between Self-Help and
the Fantasy pillars.